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With a delighted smile, he bashed a ball into the crowd, gave a little wave and sat down.Johansson, whose boyhood idols were Stefan Edberg and Mats Wilander, blew a kiss to his fianc? Gisella, as his name joined theirs on the trophy. The first Swede to win a Grand Slam since Edberg took the 1992 US Open title said: “Today was a dream come true for me. I have no words to say how happy I am.”I never thought I was going to win a Grand Slam. I dreamt about this, I saw it on TV, but I never knew I was going to stand there on the court today I was really lucky to win I’m almost over the hill. I played my best tennis ever in the last three sets.”Johansson was forced to hail a taxi to get to the match because his coach forgot to order a courtesy car. His victory propelled him to No 10 in the world and was the biggest upset of a tournament where top seeds fell like ninepins.Sadly, there was just one Swedish journalist here to record his historic triumph, and she arrived only two days ago.

Interest in tennis is currently nil in Sweden, although Johansson – who is expected to lead the Davis Cup team into battle against Great Britain in Birmingham next month – hopes things may improve following his win.He is happy at the prospect of being mobbed in restaurants. “It would be nice, because it hasn’t been like that in either Sweden or Monaco, where I live. This is going to change my life forever, and I think that’s great.”* The Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova and Kevin Ullyett, of Zimbabwe, won the mixed doubles title with a 6-3 6-2 victory over the Argentinians, Gaston Etlis and Paola Suarez. Government plans for a radical overhaul of the National Health Service come under a scathing attack today from the former health secretary Frank Dobson. The former cabinet minister’s criticism follows days of bitter arguments between Labour and the Tories over standards in the health service.While Mr Milburn predicted yesterday that rows over the state of the NHS would dominate this Parliament, Tony Blair said he was “happy to suffer the consequences” at the next election if the NHS had not been turned round. The Prime Minister pledged in a Sunday newspaper that the system would be “dramatically improved” before the election, expected in 2005. “I am quite willing to be held to account by the voters if we fail.” Mr Milburn, the Secretary of State for Health, proposes turning the best-performing hospitals, to be labelled “foundation” hospitals, into non-profit making trusts with greater freedom over spending.

The worst performers, the so-called zero-star hospitals, will be handed to managers from the private sector, neighbouring NHS trusts and charities. A planned statement today by Mr Milburn on the scheme appeared to have been postponed, amid signs of a last-minute rethink.Mr Dobson casts doubt over his successor’s shake-up, saying he is “dubious” about the whole concept. He writes: “Even if they were a good idea, this is simply not the time. It also raises the prospect of him spearheading backbench resistance to the changes.Liam Fox, the shadow Health Secretary, said: “There is very clearly growing internal unrest in the Labour Party between Downing Street and Alan Milburn on one side and Labour backbenchers on the other who are increasingly jettisoning the ‘New’ out of New Labour.”The problems confronting the Government on health were underlined yesterday when two surgeons from the Kent and Canterbury Hospital denounced the “appalling” state of its accident and emergency unit.

Richard Collins and Bob Heddle said conditions were a “catastrophe waiting to happen” and were far worse than those at the A&E department of the Whittington Hospital, north London, which was at the centre of a storm last week over the treatment of Rose Addis, 94.* Labour Party membership has plummeted by 10 per cent, its general secretary, David Triesman, told BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour last night. Membership stands at “about 280,000″, he said, compared with the 311,000 cited in the party’s annual report, published in September The Conservative Party has 318,000 members.. It’s not often a musician gets a standing ovation before he has even played a note, but Brian Wilson, erstwhile Beach Boy, composer, arranger, singer and living legend, gets just this as he arrives on stage.Then he gets another following his opening number “Brian Wilson”, with its refrain “Lying in bed like Brian Wilson did” alluding to three dark years spent in his bedroom, then another after his pre-Beach Boys ballad “In My Room” and another after “California Girls”. And so it goes on for a whole two hours and 30 minutes.
It’s only to be expected. In his long and turbulent career, Wilson has written some of the sunniest and the saddest songs pop has ever known.There cannot be a musician in existence who hasn’t longed to reach the heights of genius that Wilson attained when he was still in his teens. As his guitarist reminds us: “When this man was 23 he was giving us his tenth album.”That album was Pet Sounds which, now regarded by aficionados as the greatest album ever made, is played in its entirety through the latter half of tonight’s show.The first half is made of what you might call his greatest hits – “I Get Around”, “Surfin’ Safari”, “Don’t Worry Baby”. He attacks the complex, multi-layered beast that is “Heroes and Villains”, with all its key changes, not so much effortlessly, but with admirable enthusiasm.In falsetto mode, Wilson is still almost pitch perfect and recognisable as a Beach Boy.